>> Paul Haggis: A status-driven screenwriter who exploited a tenuous connection with Scientology to grab headlines via a publicity stunt whereby he “resigned” from the Church—when he had not been an active parishioner for decades. Haggis, whose betrayals include accepting millions for scripts that he never delivered, was himself exploited by the New Yorker’s Lawrence Wright, who approached

Prior to the Lawrence Wright-authored piece published in February 2011, TheNew Yorker had never written about filmmaker Paul Haggis. As a matter of fact, The New Yorker had even passed Haggis by in 2006 when he was in the sharp focus of Hollywood klieg lights. And what a story that might have been, given it was well known he took home an Oscar by default, riding a widely reported “anti-gay vote” over Brokeback Mountain.